The usual very pleasing crossword from Phi, which I found a bit harder than usual, although as always everything was perfectly obvious after I had finished.
John
Independent 8993/Eimi
The Independent has changed things on its website and — for the time being at least, and probably for much longer — I have to use a more primitive method of blogging, which … Read more >>
Independent 8,988 by Dac
Dac tends to be gentle, but this was an easy one. There seemed to be no difficult clues today.
Still up to the usual standard, though. As always plenty of lovely surfaces.
Definitions in italics.
AZED 2,251
After the complications of the milestone crossword last week Azed returns to something more straightforward. His grids are really outstanding: nearly every time he has words that straddle the grid — in this case four of them — and that must be hard enough before he even starts to fit in the shorter words. And he does it all by hand, which is quite amazing.
Definitions in italics.
Independent 8,983 by Donk
This was extraordinarily hard. In several places I’m not really sure what is happening and it seems to me that Donk has been less than accurate, but he has in the past produced quite excellent crosswords; perhaps he has done so this time: it may just be going over my head.
Independent 8,978 by Phi
Phi’s usual nice crossword. He is good at making a clue not all that easy to solve; yet once one has done it and is looking back, it is often quite obvious. I found nothing controversial here, although I nearly elicited a whole lot of responses explaining how 16dn worked.
Definitions in italics.
Independent 8,969 by Scorpion
Quite a tricky production from Scorpion today, but what does one expect? Everything (apart from one or two about which I’m not quite certain) seemed to be easy enough to explain after the event and there were some nice clues.
Independent 8,964 by Dac
Only yesterday I was reading the view of someone that we are in a golden age of crosswords. We are certainly in a golden age so far as Dac is concerned, since for the past several years he has almost weekly produced a perfectly-formed object.
Independent 8,959 by Morph
A nice, crossword from Morph today. I found it slightly on the hard side, though now that I’ve done the blog I can’t see why. The (possibly) CDs round the middle of the acrosses were a bit of a problem, but everything else seemed to fall into place well enough.
Some would make a very mild criticism of the answers in the grid: 18dn ends with the word OFF, as does 25ac. Possibly not the best: I did 18dn and then couldn’t believe that 25ac also ended with the same word, but there aren’t many possibilities for _ _ F.
Definitions in italics.
Independent 8,954 by Phi
Phi has not in my opinion shone quite so brightly this week as he usually does. It seems to me that several of the definitions, both of the answers and within the wordplay, are rather tenuous, although no doubt people will explain how I am missing things.
I took a long time to finish the NW corner; Rienzi was slow to appear, even though Phi gave us plenty of help by defining it as a German opera, which immediately cut out more than half of them. 12ac was apparently unsound, but more likely never properly understood, and the double definition at 8dn was also a problem. When I gave up and went to aids my Chambers Crossword Dictionary didn’t help: Bradford may have been better.
Azed 2245 / Carte Blanche
Azed has given us a carte blanche this week, the sort of thing he doesn’t often do, leaving his specials for when they are really worthwhile, the first Sunday of the month when … Read more >>
Independent 8,945 by Morph
Well up to Morph’s usual high standard today. This is a very pleasant crossword with some excellent clues and only a few niggles, some of which may amount to nothing. It is on the easier side for Morph — at least it was for me — but when I’m blogging that’s always a good thing.
Independent 8,940 by Dac
When Dac is the day’s setter the preamble to the blog tends to contain the word ‘usual’. Justifiably so. Such good surfaces, nearly every one of which paints a little picture without compromising the quality of the clue.
Independent 8,935 by Tyrus
Quite amazingly difficult, for me at any rate, who took ages. Tyrus sails fairly close to the wind but is so far as I can see ultimately fair. I didn’t really enjoy this because it was such a slog, but perhaps if I hadn’t had the pressure of blogging, it would have been easier. It will be interesting to see how people got on.
Independent 8,930 by Phi
The usual excellent production from Phi. My own stupidity resulted in lack of completion — I was looking for ages at 1dn — and in particular Phi has done two things of which I approve: although there are unches all round the edges he never has less than 50% checking, something that the grid makes a bit tricky; and in 12ac he has given us some wordplay. Many setters would have been quite happy with ‘Supporters of bridges’ as a cryptic definition, but not Phi, who gives us two ways into the solution, realising that there is nothing to stop you from having a clever and witty definition in a ‘straight’ clue.